Dr. Angela Collier plays the Binding of Isaac: Rebirth and talks at length about what went wrong with string theory, and how that affected science communication.
Dr. Angela Collier plays the Binding of Isaac: Rebirth and talks at length about what went wrong with string theory, and how that affected science communication.
Less fun fact, Micheal Crichton was an active climate change denialist.
In one public debate his team argued so convincingly that the audience went from 57% believing climate change was a global crisis down to 46% after the debate.
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Given the climate (pun) of politics at the time he was alive and playing that role, and given that hindsight has taught us An Inconvenient Truth was more political than it was based in science, and given that Crichton’s argument was that environmentalism had to be apolitical in order to ever be effective … yeah I’m not a climate change denier but neither was Crichton.
Crichton was a Democrat. And he was right, Al Gore’s movie was about fear-driven politics, not actionable goals and plans.
Go look at how climate scientists described that movie. “The basic truth and it’s inconvenience remains” one researcher was quoted saying. Tacitly admitting everything beyond the basic truth of the film was inaccurate. Go on, check out what retrospectives have to say about it. There’s a lot of em.
Again, Crichton was right, and he was absolutely not in denial of climate change. He was against using social problems with scientific solutions as political ammunition in the fear cannons.
Bottom line is any time someone insists a complex problem has a solution as simple and clear cut as “vote Democrat”, they’re wrong. More wrong than they are right, especially given any timeline longer than 4 years. And that’s exactly what you’re doing here. “Crichton deviated from the party line on the environment ergo he’s just a ‘denier’”. There’s far more nuance in this life than that.
The approach to climate change cannot ever be apolitical. Once you see the facts, it’s very fucking clear what’s happening, why it’s happening, and what must be done to stop it, and simply “vote democrat” has never been the answer.
Further, nothing is ever apolitical, cannot be, and should not bel. Your politics, biases, and overall worldview affect everything you do. It’s easy to say you’re “apolitical” when your views align with the status quo. But status quo does not mean neutrality.
There are no solutions to climate change that are contingent on a particular party being in power in a single nation when the problem isn’t confined to a single nation. Making the environment about Democrats over Republicans is wildly dangerous because it breeds contentment: people think they did their part in electing the “right” person and stop giving a damn. Politics isn’t going to offer a solution to climate change, but they’ll certainly tell you they’ve got em.
Tell me you’re okay with being lied to in order to be made afraid, tell me you’re okay with science being misrepresented for political brownie points, and I’ll tell you you’re no better than a grubby politician yourself, because that’s all that standpoint serves. Political brownie points. It’s “ends justify the means” logic. “Its fine to fear monger and lie and misrepresent facts as long as you’re doing so on support of the right ideology” is wildly stupid and dangerous reasoning.